Should Open Cart have more control over it's releases?

mommaroodles wrote:

opencartisalright wrote:

merry wrote:It's also possible that there is a method to the madness that we just can't perceive. After all, OpenCart has grown faster than almost any program out there... Daniel has his eye on the Big Picture. These little complaints must sound like gnats buzzing to him.

Kerry

Firstly, is your name Kerry or Merry? Because your signature says Kerry but your screen name says Merry. It's a bit confusing.

Secondly, as a professional writer/reviewer (which i'm assuming you are), I would imagine you look at things objectively, giving praise when it's due and exposing faults when it's necessary.

We are talking about a more structured release cycle here, which I think is important for both end-users and developers. While it's quite possible Daniel has his eye on some "big picture", that doesn't mean the littler details such as a more structured release cycle should be ignored. And if he looks at his customers (yes, people who use his cart are customers regardless of whether it's free or not) and thinks of them as insignificant gnats buzzing around, then I don't really have much confidence in his "big picture" idea anymore.

I have to agree with everything opencartisalright has said, I don't think I could have said this any better! OC definitely still appears to be in development stage and is by no means suitable for a live store and at this point and time due to the frequency of the releases does leave me wondering whether I should even attempt using this software on a live production store.! The last thing I want to do is be spending my life trying to upgrade to the latest release. For someone who has highly modified store with approx 24 000 products - the constant upgrading, I can only imagine must be a nightmare.!!

you lack of experience in the working on building big e-commerce sites shows.

i have worked at a few companies and when they have a shop they keep adding new features everyday until upgrading is out of the question.

you complain about the frequency of releases but i have others in the forum that are waiting for the next release all the time. I think prestashop has about the same release time as opencart now.

Daniel wrote:1.5.1 is very stable a part from a few silly mistake in the first 2 days. the bugs reported is back to 0 for now. has not been that way since 1.5.0 was released.

For as far I can see from testing 1.5.1 SVN 482 it is pretty stable.

I think that the SVN Branch/Tree could be setup better. Xsecrets said it yesterday, we should have a new 1.5.2.x branch if you start working on that and keep the 1.5.1 Branch/Tree separate for just bug-fixes.
This would make use of the SVN as it was intend to.
Looking at PS they do it the same way.

Updating your store to fix a bug/issue would be a breeze then, your would only need the files with the fixes.

I wish upgrading was like WordPress.

Im surprised no one has developed an automatic upgrade mod so it will be easy for most people to upgrade without breaking the shop.

I agree no script is perfect but these releases are a pain in the ass. I have been working on a shop since v1.4.9.1 but once a new version is out I try to use that since there are some big changes and especially with v1.5

Personally I would never choose another shopping cart over OC but like I said a solution is needed for the upgrade process.

dony_b wrote:I wish upgrading was like WordPress.

Im surprised no one has developed an automatic upgrade mod so it will be easy for most people to upgrade without breaking the shop.

I agree no script is perfect but these releases are a pain in the ass. I have been working on a shop since v1.4.9.1 but once a new version is out I try to use that since there are some big changes and especially with v1.5

Personally I would never choose another shopping cart over OC but like I said a solution is needed for the upgrade process.

I really wish people would stop referencing wordpress/joomla/insert cms here when talking about plugins and upgrades. CMS's are honestly much simpler than shopping carts. Magento went to great lengths to have a cms like upgrade process that supposedly would never break anything, and every major upgrade and several of the minors basically break the crap out of any shop that is not a plain default install. Not to mention that even though cms's are simpler wordpress and all the rest will break on upgrade if you've done much customization.

dony_b wrote:I wish upgrading was like WordPress.

Im surprised no one has developed an automatic upgrade mod so it will be easy for most people to upgrade without breaking the shop.

I agree no script is perfect but these releases are a pain in the ass. I have been working on a shop since v1.4.9.1 but once a new version is out I try to use that since there are some big changes and especially with v1.5

Personally I would never choose another shopping cart over OC but like I said a solution is needed for the upgrade process.

i will look into how the wordpress upgrading works. magento has a auto upgrade script but as far as i know it deletes all the modifications.

Daniel wrote:1.5.1 is very stable a part from a few silly mistake in the first 2 days. the bugs reported is back to 0 for now. has not been that way since 1.5.0 was released. people keep taking about not stable all the time but no script is. you can bug test for years and when the script is on a live site then you find bugs...

I have to embrace early releases to write the user manuals, so I get to put a program through all its paces and usually find a lot of bugs. I report them all as a courtesy and let me say that I did not find many substantive bugs. They were all fixed with lightning speed.

I feel that the 1.5.x release cycle has been handled professionally, and better than industry norms. Disclosure of the status and limitations of each release was VERY specific. It went rapidly from beta to full release, but that can happen when a committee is not in charge. My hat is off to you.

Kerry

As I am new to oc (from oscommerce), all I would like to say is that I downloaded 1.5.0.5 in spectaculous assuming it was stable. I have been extremely impressed with the cart functionality and the look and I have found most answers on the forum posts when needed. Then I find a number of bugs, I check the bug report thread, try the posted fix which was wrong and then the thread is locked and a new version released.

As a non-coder, whilst I am comfortable changing the code with fixes, I really need to spend my time getting my website up and running, ready to go live when php5.3 is installed on the server. I need a stable version, ready for a live site. I do not want to have to be updating within the 1st week of installing oc nor letting my customers complain things don't work. I don't even know the process of updating as I'm just wearing in the new shoes if you know what I mean.

My personal hope would be for OC to have a set framework for the release - alpha, beta, rc etc so we would all know what we are starting off with.

Please can someone advise the most stable version to use? Although now you've tempted me with 1.5 I will no doubt be hooked! Would I be better to scrap my 1.5.0.5 installation and start again with 1.5.1.1?

Thanks to all for such a fab cart - leaves oscommerce back in the last century for sure and I'm really pleased to have stumbled on opencart.

most stable in general: 1.4.9.6
most stable 1.5.x version is the latest

The issue here is that we are forward moving
We release some code that we think works. The main bits are working and not throwing errors
Then people find bugs in small typos and things.. so we fix them and release a new version
Just like every other software in the world

The hard part is getting these changes to be easily updated into your store without breaking stuff. The extension system is limited to extensions only. vQmod is a semi-viable replacement for a real plugin/hook system.. but there can be limitations depending on what the customization is for your cart. Theme work, module tweaks, etc.

Then there is other plans for improving the code that breaks existing stores.

1.5.0.5 had all the latest bug fixes at the moment.
1.5.1 has more bug fixes along with a new way to store module data in the database.. This was unfortunately an impacting change.. But a change that daniel found necessary to improve things going forward. I agree that serializing the data into a single record has its pros.

But should time be spend on an upgrade conversion for 1.5.0.5 to 1.5.1 to take each individual record and serialize it? It is actually a lot of tedious work for a one time update. Or should more time be spent on new features and other bugs rather than the slight inconvenience of 10mins to readd all your modules back?

Keep in mind that it is not a question of "do you need to upgrade?". The reality is that people want to upgrade.
Whatever you say, when someone runs a fine and complete useful 1.4.9.5 or 1.5.0.1 the urge to upgrade will occur as soon as a new release comes out.

Therefore upgrades should be possible, should be as easy as can be, needed or not.

Qphoria wrote:
The issue here is that we are forward moving

But should time be spend on an upgrade conversion for 1.5.0.5 to 1.5.1 to take each individual record and serialize it? It is actually a lot of tedious work for a one time update. Or should more time be spent on new features and other bugs rather than the slight inconvenience of 10mins to readd all your modules back?

Just like with the weather, we're never happy! I think when you move from oscommerce you get a real shock about the "forward moving-ness" of opencart Opencart has most of the neat stuff out of the box - just fab

I'll maybe try installing the newest version and take it from there before I do too much more fiddling.

LuLz!
Comparing to osc is pointless. Harald dropped the ball when dealing with Wilt and Kim.

Looks like that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of "upgrade" going on. Now, solve that and you'll reduce the number of complaints.

Nobody should and probably don't expect everything to work. However, 1.1.x (point x) release should not bust anything. Which is now a naming convention issue.

Admin side installer, unless you get crazy ass creative, is not going to be fun. osc is not HMVC it's only MVC which will make a WP,modx, Drupal etc ... situation pretty difficult. Q addressed this in a way a few months back with his directory layout changes idea.

Why not compare to a CMS?
opencart is just a cart and not full out system trying to be everything. So, I'd say scripts like drupal and modx are more difficult to deal with and they have worked out the admin side installations. However, the above about HMVC (from my understanding) is more than likely a major key here.

Cheers!

Thanks to Daniel for some narly crazy ass stuff!

SapporoGuy wrote: Why not compare to a CMS?
opencart is just a cart and not full out system trying to be everything. So, I'd say scripts like drupal and modx are more difficult to deal with and they have worked out the admin side installations. However, the above about HMVC (from my understanding) is more than likely a major key here.

Cheers!

Thanks to Daniel for some narly crazy ass stuff!

where do people come up with this crap? just a cart not as complex as a cms? Sorry but you are 100% backwards a cart is MUCH more complicated than a CMS. That's why most all the carts that are plugins to CMS's are complete crap.

Yea actually a cart is a lot more involved than a CMS.. that is why cms and blogs are much easier to have automatic upgrades.

CMS' have a relatively simplistic design....they are designed to show static data usually (Articles, categories, etc)
They do not have the complexity of taxing, currency conversion, zoning, calculations, etc. They are also 1:1 with menu items to stories and categories. The site develops automatically as you add categories and articles and usually they are kept in one language.

A cart on the other hand has a lot of finer points. More cross-referenced database tables (product-to-category-to-manufacturer-to-option-to-value-etc), language conversions, etc. Also security concerns for the overall "flow" for the checkout process. That means there are a lot of little checks for things during checkout that add a lot of tedious but mostly necessary code like you can't load the checkout/confirm page if the checkout/payment page wasn't reached, no loading the checkout/payment page if the shipping page wasn't reached.. etc. Maintaining the session for the cart product and option data, customer countries and zones. It can get pretty overwhelming. And things like forms can't be universal or dynamic because the data in the forms typically needs to be carried over to other consumers of the data. So adding a form field on the create account page is a HUGE job because it has to be carried from the create page to the session, to the order, to the database, then on the admin side show on the order edit page. There are a lot more bits and pieces to manage so a small change can mean a bigger impact which is what makes it more difficult to handle upgrades.

Think the trouble is, people see whats on their screen but dont understand the level of difficulty envolved in getting it to all go together.

I guess you could compare CMS' to a jigsaw, and then opencart to a 3D jigshaw with interlinking strings

i2Paq wrote: we should have a new 1.5.2.x branch if you start working on that and keep the 1.5.1 Branch/Tree separate for just bug-fixes.

Sounds good to me. This would certainly help the end user who is not a coder - and we are welcome here, aren't we? We all learn from eachother to make oc even greater. I actually like to manually install updates as it gives me a feel for the code and I can see where I have something that is modded and may break. I just don't want to be updating in the first week to fix the bugs and then getting more bugs which need fixed with another update. Seems wise to concentrate on fixing the bugs to get something stable than to add in lots more features which may have bugs.

I'm not afraid to change files but I imagine complete newbys to websites would find the current system very scary and it might just be the deciding factor on whether to use opencart or not.

SapporoGuy wrote:LuLz!
Comparing to osc is pointless.

It wasn't my intention to do that, oc is in a class of it's own, just trying to make the point that things are much faster here than I'm used to - which is a good thing and one reason why I'm sticking around.

I understand how much effort goes into making it all go together. Anything can always be improved though....

Daniel, how about i2Paqs suggestion?

On phone and driving at the moment so my post will be a bit brief.

WTF???

How are you comparing a monolithic program to mvc?
Using complexity of function sounds like trolling to me!

Using an argument like "a plug in for a cms" is not a very strong argument because it is a plugin to begin with and it is not a full stack ecommerce solution.

My point above was simple; adding automatic updates to a mvc is not a trivial task
Also I'd love to see a vB, drupal, modx, etc ... dev reply to how "simple" you view their systems.

Kohana, symphony and like are just frameworks so would be hard to compare a 1 to 1.

@ updates
Things break, fact of life

@ aside
Q, yes I agree with many of your points but I'm looking at this from a different view point as pointed out above.
X, I respect your prowess with mysql so can you tone down the argumentative stance?

Peace and love

Sorry lulz was regarding this whole topic.

However in way it does apply to osc

Doing updates by hand is great way to learn moreover it really helps to understand the system and get insights how the developers program and sort of think!

You will also see some interesting things!

I do recommend using software that lets you do a file compare instead of just a simple drop and replace. Doing this will also help when you have modifications. You'll be able to catch problems or at least know what area is the culprit.

SapporoGuy wrote:On phone and driving at the moment so my post will be a bit brief.

WTF???

How are you comparing a monolithic program to mvc?
Using complexity of function sounds like trolling to me!

because you didn't mention mvc you mentioned modx and drupal which are CMS's. As a matter of fact you specifically said "why not compare to a CMS.

Using an argument like "a plug in for a cms" is not a very strong argument because it is a plugin to begin with and it is not a full stack ecommerce solution.

exactly. If it was easy to do a full stack ecommerce solution one would be done as a plugin for the CMS systems.

My point above was simple; adding automatic updates to a mvc is not a trivial task
Also I'd love to see a vB, drupal, modx, etc ... dev reply to how "simple" you view their systems.

Not at all what it sounded like. "opencart is just a cart and not full out system trying to be everything. So, I'd say scripts like drupal and modx are more difficult to deal with and they have worked out the admin side installations." to me sounds very much like you are saying that that opencart (a full blown ecommerce stack) is just a very simple thing and it should be easy to write an admin update system for. That's simply not the case. Q did a good job of explaining the reasons an ecommerce application is more complicated than a CMS.

Kohana, symphony and like are just frameworks so would be hard to compare a 1 to 1.

don't even know where this came from. this is the first time anyone has mentioned symphony or kohana, and to top it off those systems don't have gui updates, or gui's at all for that matter.

Hiya!

Did mention HMVC in that paragraph.

However ..

to me sounds very much like you are saying that that opencart (a full blown ecommerce stack) is just a very simple thing and it should be easy to write an admin update system for. That's simply not the case. Q did a good job of explaining the reasons an ecommerce application is more complicated than a CMS.

You have misunderstood me. I said that it would not be a "trivial" thing to do. IF the smiley threw you off, sorry. I meant that as more of a joke since people think that Daniel could just whip something up that will work. From what I've seen opencart would go direct to version 2.0

We're basically saying the same thing except that I still don't consider that a full stack CMS framework would be simpler than what an ecommerce solution offers. Q did of course bring up some excellent arguments but there are many complexities involved in a forum script or cms. Granted they don't have major worries of money moving but they still have to deal with functionality that just can't be dumped into a pile saying well it's just a page being created. Each in it's can be as simple or complex depending on what you are looking at.

Having said that, the complexity is more of programmers decision on how they want to layout the script. Adding hooks or designing the directory structure with non-core modification in mind would lessen lots of problems.

As for the framework comment, I mentioned those frameworks since they are MVC and also deal with language and they don't seem to be a simple few page site builder but rather complex and intricate scripts that will allow you to build what you want. errr, or was it code ignitor that has built in language support????

One thing I forgot to mention about the plugin solutions. For some reason I haven't really seen any framework take ecommerce super serious. They always tend to let paypal do the heavy lifting. Some ruby folks are the same, they feel a button is enough. Strange

aside:
X, I was serious about the above comment regarding your skills. I didn't mention that I find many things that you say educational or enlightening.
It looks like we rub each other wrong way some times when we have different opinions. So let's keep things friendly-argumentative!